Extreme Wine from the Valle d'Aosta

I just had a wine that has to qualify as being made under extreme conditions. The grapes were grown in the highest vineyards in Europe--not a highest vineyard, THE highest vineyard. How high? It's in the shadow of Mount Blanc, in Italy's Valle d'Aosta region, and the grapes are planted up to 4000 ft. above sea level.

What grapes can survive in conditions such as those pictured on the left? Prie Blanc, an early-ripening grape that is native to the region. Growers plant the vines on low pergolas (pergola bassa) that keep the vines from getting too damaged in all that wind. These are hardy vines--they'd have to be--with an average age of 60 years.

And what hardy souls actually want to grow grapes in such a place? La Cave du Vin Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle is a co-op established in 1983 that includes more than 90 growers who produce fruit under the direction of Gianluca Telloli. They have an excellent website for those of you who know French or Italian--the English portion of the site is still under construction.

I had the 2006 La Cave du Vin Blanc de Morgex et de La Salle "Rayon" white wine which was stupendous markdown from K & L Wines for $4.99 a bottle (regular price: $17.99; find it online for $7-$21). Not surprisingly they've sold out of the wine in the 3 weeks since I placed my order. Now I'm on the lookout for the 2007 vintage. It was an intriguing white with its canary yellow color, heavy mouthfeel, and faint aromas of lemon. The flavors reminded me of pear and citrus, and there were mineral, rocky notes in the aftertaste. Very good QPR if you pay more than $10 for it, excellent QPR if you scored it for $5 (like I did).

Pair your La Cave du Vin "Rayon" with anything that's made with cheese (like risotto or fondue), shellfish, or chicken roasted with lemon and herbs. All of these foods will be excellent with the pear and citrus notes in the wine.

German Sparkling Wine: NV Schloss Biebrich Sekt

Do you know which nation consumes more sparkling wine per capita than any other?

No, it's Germany. I learned this fun fact from Golly over at Golly's Wine Drops, where he reviewed a different German sparker for you to check out when you're done reading this.

Every LA area Trader Joe's that I've been to in December has end-caps full of this German sparkler: the NV Schloss Biebrich Sekt ($3.99, Trader Joe's). While I tend not to find their $5.99 wines either exciting or particularly drinkable this is the third bottle of $3.99 wine from Trader Joe's that I've really enjoyed. It represented excellent QPR, and at that price I'd buy quite a few and put them away for the rest of the winter.

Bright and floral, this wine was almost as translucent and colorless as water. It had a modest apple aroma, and when the wine was poured in the glass there was an alarming amount of froth (ok, mousse for the geeks out there). Usually wines with lots of froth/mousse the bubbles are big and harsh, but the Schloss Biebrich bubbles were smooth and small. On the palate, there wasn't a harsh or bitter note, just warm pears flavors and a lingering impression of flowers on the finish. This wine is probably made with riesling grapes, but I can't find out much about it on the web, so that's just conjecture on my part. The Deutsches Weininstitut has a great article on German sekt sparklers, if you would like more information.

This wine is just a hair off-dry, and would be perfect with Indian food, Thai food, Szechuan food, and light appetizers. We had a yummy Asian fusion meal with it: a spicy sauced salmon with coconut rice topped with edamame and a fresh mango salsa (note: I subbed a salmon fillet for the chicken in the original recipe). This was perfect with the wine, and it would be a fast recipe to knock together for an impressive meal for guests who might drop by during the holidays.

Cserszegi fuszeres! Gesundheit!

Last night I ventured into wine territory unknown, and opened up a bottle of the 2005 Hilltop Neszmely Woodsman's White (Trader Joe's, $3.99) from Hungary. What a find!

The 2005 Woodsman's White is made with the varietal cserszegi fuszeres, a cross between Irsai Oliver and a strain of gewurztraminer. What is Irsai Oliver, you ask? Irsai Oliver is itself a cross between Pozsony and Pearl of Csaba. If this doesn't send you to your wine encyclopedias and the internet to find out more, nothing will. This varietal is distinct for its citrus, gooseberry (think really tart granny smith and you're not far off if you've not had a gooseberry), and clove flavors. Nicknamed by clever marketers "the unpronounceable grape" you can impress your friends by practicing how to say it: Chair-saggy Fooser-raish. (No, I don't speak Hungarian but that's the phonetic spelling given on the back of the label.)

In a recent post comment, Ruarri drew attention to the significance of wine regions, like Hungary, where wine has been grown for centuries but whose wine is relatively unknown here in the US. Most familiar in the US are the sweet Hungarian Tokaji dessert wines, but there is an intriguing variety of other varietals and wine styles in the region. Finding such wines can be hard, but it's never going to get any easier unless we walk into our local wine shops and say, "Hey, do you have any Chair-saggy Fooser-raish?" (You might want to write the name down before you leave your house in case the wine merchant wants you to spell it). Meanwhile, it's a good idea to scour the bottom shelves at places like Trader Joe's where all kinds of unusual varietals can lurk, or seek some out at online merchants. And then tell those merchants that you liked it (if you did) afterwards, so that they are encouraged to go out and find more.

This wine had something of a split personality, but that could be an advantage in this case. It was pale straw in color and had the most amazing aromas: flowers, honey, apples, lemons, peaches all were noticeable and recognizable. I thought at this point the wine was likely to be sweet and perhaps even syrupy. But on the palate this wine was bone dry, with striking crisp and tart granny smith apple, mineral, and lemon peel flavors. The only note that I felt was missing was the clove you should get with this grape. But for the price, and given the varietal characteristics that it did show, I still feel that this was excellent QPR.

What should you eat with your Woodsman's White? We had some grilled chicken apple sausages and potatoes with a salad because I wasn't sure how sweet this wine was and was being careful to pick something that would be fine regardless. And, these foods were indeed wonderful with the wine. But I think it would be great with traditional Hungarian chicken paprikas (June Meyer has a great recipe online for you to try) or other dishes that use sour cream like chicken stroganoff. It would also be good with asian stir-fries (nothing too spicy), or other food that is highly aromatic yet can handle a lean, unoaked wine.

Tiny Bubbles--2005 Contadino Pinot Grigio Frizzante

My partner is at a conference up north and I'm on my own tonight so I get to make whatever I want for dinner and drink something fun, fizzy, and not so alcoholic that I'm going to be asleep by 7:30. The answer came to me from JohnG's blog, quaffability. (I nicked this picture from his blog--thanks, JohnG.) JohnG's site specializes in wine that's mostly from Trader Joe's and mostly under $12. As he says on the site, "we taste it so you don't have to." Check it out!

The 2005 Contadino Pinot Grigio Frizzante is fun to drink and available in my area at Trader Joe's for a staggeringly low $3.99. Even though it was frizzante, it had strong varietal characteristics of Pinot Grigio. Given these characteristics, and its unbelievably low price, I'm going to say this is excellent QPR.

I certainly wasn' t expecting much going in. Most wines that are this inexpensive have no varietal characteristics whatsoever--you know, the chardonnays that taste like microwaved popcorn and the merlots that taste like some indefinable Red Fruit. The packaging didn't help. Why put a wrap on a screwcap, for God's sake? It was really chilled down, so I let it sit in the glass for just a bit while I started dinner. Its tiny bubbles and lightly sparkling texture was evident. Frizzante on the label was, lets face it, a bit alarming when I saw it in the store, conjuring up horrible memories of nasty spumante. But spumante is BIG bubbles while frizzante is technically "semi-sparkling" and, more to the point, small bubbles.

I took a few sips while I was getting another Jamie Oliver roasted fennel dish ready to pop in the oven and marinating the lemon-thyme chicken. It was very pale in the glass, and the aromas were subtle and appley. The flavors were stronger apple, with a hint of lemon blossom (more an impression than a strong citrusy flavor, which you get with most pinot grigio). It was perfectly easy (too easy?) to drink without food. With food, it was even better, holding up well to the salty olives and anise flavors of the fennel, and to the herbs and lemon on the chicken.

This wine is not sweet, and it is not "bubbly." It is very easy to drink, however. Buy a few bottles for the last picnic of the season, or to have at cocktails this weekend, or even to sip while the kids carve pumpkins for Halloween.